Final Fantasy XI

[Caller]

Y'know it dawned on me just how much money I've spent in the game due to the utter ease in making it now. THF alone has cost me at least a million, and BLM and SCH combined at least 3 million. I just dropped another 500k on THF today on a new Dagger that gives Haste (and a super potent haste at that) and spells have cost me at least half a million too. And though I'm down to about 100k, I have around 1.5 million gil in cruor just waiting to be spent.

Seriously it's like printing money in Abyssea. Who needs RMT?

[Yvondith]

I'm sure you and Mark can duo Simurgh. Finding it up might be an issue though.

[Caller]

Did my first 4.5k Blizzard V today. It was a Magic Burst and with massive Abyssea boosts but I don't care. <_<

[masaia]

Got dancer to 95. Soon as I remember how to make pics I'll post the cocktail dress set.

Ended up liking the job after all my bitching

[Yvondith]

That's a surprise. >.>

Yvondith is still weaksauce. But I has super haste so it's OK.

[masaia]

Just maxed out my merits today. I never stop attacking with haste + haste samba up. Double attack rate with all my gear makes me stupid broken...

Now if only abyssea parties had decent healers...

Photo later, sleep now~

[Yvondith]

Dejibo says her WHM/BST are level 95! I'm so proud of her!

[Yvondith]

I am back in FFXI. Stuff is cheaper than I remember. Peacock Charms are 300k. o.O

[Caller]

It's because of how much better abyssea gear is (well, ok, mostly) and so lowbie gear doesn't sell as quickly. Proof is in the fact that if these items were still hot ticket, the fact you can make half a million gil if not more in a 5 hour abyssea party should've made prices explode. Remember back in 2007 with the RMT and the 5 million gil Scorpion Harness and etc?

So it works out pretty well. Leveling up lowbie jobs just got easier. Though the supply isn't all that great anymore.

[Yvondith]

Got my Ninjer to 55. The new way of leveling is a hell of a lot faster, even for lowbies. I got 10 levels in just a few hours.

[Yvondith]

I finally got a Federation Aketon. About time! I only paid 90k for it too!

And I would like to make another plea for our old friends to return to the game. The days of struggling for an EXP group are gone. When I first game back, getting from 1-75 was a chore, but not anymore. Level 1-15 is easily soloed in the starter zones. From what I understand, 15-75 is obtained by doing Grounds of Valor in large groups. The atmosphere is a lot more laid back than before, everyone essentially just mobs the enemy. No tanking anymore, just healing and damage dealing. At 75+, there is Abyssea which is more of the same. It all seems to be very, very easy.

And like Caller said, with Abyssea, it's like printing money. RMT are pretty much completely cleared out. Prices are much more reasonable. Just getting an EXP group makes tons of money with the various points you can get.

Also, if you are a WHM, people absolutely love you.

At any rate, what I'm saying is that things are easier than ever before. Even easier than WoW. It would be a lot of fun to have the whole gang back again.

[Office Ninja]

Ugh stop tempting me.

Have they made any graphical improvements? And do they support widescreen resolutions now?

[Yvondith]

Yes, Widescreen is now supported. The newer models are higher resolution but overall the graphics are the same, with the exception of the new high res icons and font.

[Caller]

They are slowly, veeeeery slowly phasing in HD textures, but it's still very "Top-end PS2" and there's not much to be done about it. PS2 limitations and all that.

The game is nothing like you'd remember gameplay-wise. To say tanking is gone is a bit extreme, but it is mostly "swarm the enemy, get exp, repeat," which, be honest, is most MMOs out there. The good news is that you can get 1-60 in a DAY if you really wanted to. 1-15ish can be done in 1-2 hours, then 16-35ish in another 1-2 hours. It'll slow down a bit past 30, by which I mean 30-60 in about 4-6 hours. That used to take months! SE is dedicated on removing the grind of exping and they've pretty much succeeded on that front. They want to focus on high level content since the game really isn't getting a large influx of new members anymore (if they'd advertise...). And the new endgame is a new patch of zones called Abyssea, which think of it as Dark Vana'diel a la Dark and Light Hyrule.

I can see it being hard for a brand newbie though. The lowbie market has all but stagnated so it's hard to make a lot of money at low levels, but at the same time, you don't need a lot of money. Prices are really cheap. If you come back we'd need to help you a bit to get you started but after that it'd be simple enough.

You can get into Abyssea parties at 30, if a leader will take you (don't expect them to, you're a leech at low levels, but some parties will take you to micromanage the hundreds of treasure chests that drop from enemies) but you get a hefty exp penalty and can't actually participate in the battles until about 75+, and I'll get more into that if you come back. It's a big topic. But that's how you get to max level now. You can get upwards of 150k exp an hour. Now compare that to when 5k an hour was considered a good party and 10k an hour was considered a god party.

The crux of the game is in its endgame now which is mostly Abyssea, Voidwalkers and Walk of Echoes, but Mark and I haven't really gotten into it yet. We're farming gear and kicking butt doing it, I might add.

[Norfy the Walrus]

If things are that easy I MAY come back. I still have fond memories of the game but the huge ass grind and the farming for hours upon hours just for 10k gold really drove me away in the end. I'm not promising anything but if I do come back you guys might need to hold my hand and teach me some of the newer stuff going on with the game.

I don't care if MMOs are super easy or hard, just so long as it feels like an actual GAME and not a JOB. It sounds like more of a game now than it did before, so thumbs up to SE for that.